Mind-Controlled Drones Are Already A Reality

Daniel Pack holds a quadcopter at UTSA's Unmanned
Systems Laboratory.The University of
Texas at San Antonio

Researchers are now using US Department of Defense funding to
explore what could be the next big step in drone technology: mind
control.

Daniel Pack, who manages the Unmanned Systems Laboratory at the
University of Texas at San Antonio, told Business Insider that
his goal is to be able to create entire groups of drones
controlled with a simple thought.

Thanks to a $300,000 grant from the Office of the Secretary of
Defense, professors and graduate students from various
departments at UTSA are exploring how brain waves can be
translated into commands for nearby drones. The US Army Research
Laboratory was also involved in
some of the funding for the research, which will run until spring
2016.

A separate, $400,000 grant provided brain-wave measuring
equipment — electroencephalography, or EEG — which includes a set
of electrodes. Placed on the subject's scalp (see below), these
pick up on the wearer's brain waves, which vary depending on
thought processes or activities. Machines are programmed to
translate specific brain waves into commands, meaning that they
can be controlled just by thinking.

Researchers claim the
technology could help make soldiers more mobile and less
dependent on static infrastructure. It could make some elements
of drone infrastructure obsolete, as pilots would no longer need
a ground station to relay instructions to the vehicles flying
overhead.

The UTSA team even "hope[s] to
eliminate the need for ground stations" altogether. It imagines
drones that would be able to "extract vehicle control signals
directly from brain signals of a soldier operating one or more
aerial vehicles."

The technology for inputting commands with thoughts alone — known
as brain-computing interface, or BCI — is less speculative than
it seems.

Back in 2006, a paralyzed man was able, with some difficulty, to
move
a mouse cursor on a computer, and even open and close a
prosthetic hand. He wore the same type of scalp electrode
technology that UTSA's researchers now have their hands on.

And the University of Minnesota even released
a video last year showcasing a mind-controlled drone maneuvering
through large hoops in a gym.

The study claimed to demonstrate "for the first time the ability
to control a flying robot in 3D physical space using noninvasive
scalp recorded EEG in humans."

Bin He, who led the Minnesota study, told Business Insider he
didn't have any military application in mind when he decided to
undertake his research. A quadcopter drone was used only because
it offered a showcase for motion control in three dimensions.

Another study led by He and published last month showed that test
subjects with experience in yoga or meditation were
better at controlling a mouse cursor with their minds — again
using brain-wave sensors — than people without that background
(this another possible reason for the US military to continue
its meditation
program).

The mechanics of piloting a mind-controlled drone are amazingly
simple, even if the technology behind it is not. In the
University of Minnesota video, one of the graduate students
involved in the project explains that making the drone turn is as
simple as anticipating making a fist with your left or right
hand.

Commanding the drones can be done almost by instinct alone. Alex
Doud, who spent seven years working with He, told Business
Insider the technology reacts "in that intense anticipatory
moment where you're not actually sending activation signals to
your muscle." It works off of the same mental flinching required
of an activity like a child's hand-slap game, he
said.

A similar approach was used by Tim Fricke, who was involved in
the intra-European
"Brainflight", the results of which were published earlier
this year. Users were able to pilot a virtual plane in a
simulated cockpit with brain signals linked to the movement of
their hands.

UTSA graduate student
Prasanna Kolar controls a drone with a cellphone app — for
now.The University of Texas at San
Antonio

That's not the route the University of Texas at San Antonio is
planning on taking with its own research.

Instead of translating specific brain waves (like those emitted
when you intend to clench your hand) into commands for the drone,
Mr. Pack and his team want to make the interaction more direct,
without the need for a what Fricke calls "motor imagery."

"There's a big difference between those two things. One is
indirect control," Pack said, while his team "is really trying to
understand the interaction between humans and machines."

Ideally, drone operators would simply be willing the machines
under their control into action.

Fricke told Business Insider that flying a drone could be as
seamless as that most emblematic of instinctive, unthinking
activities: "It's like riding a bike," he says. "You learn it
only once but you can do it your whole life."